Vietnam veteran battles for VA compensation, Agent Orange 40 years after war

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Tony Munro was a healthy 27-year-old Air Force veteran enjoying civilian life in Arizona's copper country when the event that would shape the rest of his life unfolded.

He was not long out of the service, having been discharged in 1973 after a four-year stint as an airplane-propeller mechanic. Like many young men of that era, he'd spent a year in Vietnam at the U.S. base at Cam Ranh Bay, repairing C-7 Caribou transport planes and, on occasion, others.

One November morning in 1977, Munro was at breakfast with co-workers from the Globe branch of the Valley National Bank when he suddenly felt "woozy." A wave of heat flashed over him. Then, a severe, overwhelming pain developed in his abdomen. He collapsed.

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